We had a whole Ben’s Day Wednesday planned, but when I got to Wegman’s and found that this was the week for fresh lobsters, I decided to change our course. When I told Ben I brought home something better than the shrimp he had asked for, he guessed steak. When I said, “Better,” he said, “What’s better than steak?” Point taken, Ben, but the annual impromptu lobster fest was pretty darned good!
When Phil and I were newly dating our freshman year of college, he wanted to impress me by making me a lobster dinner at his parents’ house, which was only a block off campus. I had never had lobster before, and I couldn’t believe how delicious it was! I guess it is a little creepy and sadistic to throw a live creature into boiling water for your dinner, but it is so tasty that you kind of get over it.
Six years later, on our honeymoon in Maine, we didn’t have a pot to…boil lobster in, so we took advantage of a great deal on a lobster dinner at a restaurant called The Owl and the Pussycat. The special (according to Phil, who has a savant-like memory for prices, but absent-mindedly stuck a container of fresh mushrooms in the freezer this week) was a 2-lobster dinner with sides for $10.95. In retrospect, the special may have been designed for a couple to share, but Phil recalls that we each ordered the special, making for a 4-lobster spectacle on our table. We were young, and had no shame, so we went back the next night and ordered exactly the same thing.
Our lobster dinner this week was less gluttonous, but every bit as enjoyable. We made an old stand-by, broccoli and shells, to round out the meal. Usually, it stands on its own, but this time it obviously took a back seat to the lobster with “dipping butter,” as Ben calls it.
